Presumably the last of the Evelyn Waugh novels dealing with the adventures of Englishman Guy Crouchback immediately prior, during and just after the Second World War, The End Of The Battle gleams with all the old audacity, macabre romanticism and cadaverous jollity which have made Waugh probably the supreme satirist of our day. For those not familiar with the previous Crouchback pursuits, the author has provided a synopsis, and though that's a curt and crowded affair and the opening pages rather stuffy, nevertheless as one gets into the odd-named, odd-ball characters and many-faceted plot the grand pattern becomes clear. Essentially Waugh is following his representative last-man-of honor hero through the Battle of Britain and using him as a guide to its nonsense and its glory. After movingly describing the funeral of Crouchback's Catholic father, the author then brilliantly tackles the return of Crouch-back's former wife, the much-married, breathless Virginia, who-pregnant from one of her lovers- gets Guy to the altar once more, takes up religion, motherhood and the good life, only to meet death in the London blitz. During that time Crouchback has been away serving UNRRA and negotiating with Tito's partisans on behalf of some Jewish refugees. What Waugh has to say both of Americans generally and the invidiousness of Dalmatian commissars particularly should infuriate the jingoists of either camp. But whether he is doing vignettes of Guy's Halberdier regiment or his quaint bachelor uncle or a daemonic friend who becomes a phony best-selling author or behind-the-scenes glimpses of battle stations, nursing retreats and social and sexual wartime mores, Mr. Waugh is always lumecane and incorrigible. And beneath the cold sparkle and baroque charm and chatter, the serious render cannot but help find real people and really human, if worldly, concern. A palpable hit.
Pub Date: Jan. 10, 1962
ISBN: 0316926205
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1961
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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